Saving our Literary World with Behavioral Analysis
Excellent Student
PSY 4600
Krista Gabriau
12-10-06
IntroductionTwo years ago an angel incognito as a librarian asked me the greatest question in all existence,
“Do you want a job?” Oh ma’am…you had me at hello. That was the beginning of my job/adventure into the world of rare books and special collections. A place I believe to be a noble
organization indeed; working for the betterment of humanity. Almost as gallant as the noble goal of behavior analysis: to save the whole world with behavior analysis! Since then, I’ve learned the fine art of de-molding books, repairing spines and joints, and giving impromptu lectures on things I pretend to know a lot about. Our beloved boss and local pun-master Dr.
Thomas Amos, departed this world last summer very suddenly. Because of this abrupt loss, we students we’re left to manage the department alone. For one whole year.
Imagine if you will, the work ethic of a group of college students doing summer work in a Library. Now, I’m sure it could have been much worse, but with no boss, no penalties, no
structure… not much was getting done.
Now that, Mr. Librarian, is victim blaming, saying the victim of a problem is the cause of the problem. We student workers were experiencing the real cause of poor-self management;
where there is poor rule control by outcomes, which in our case, were too small to control our behavior.
ProblemSince then, at the start of the 2006 Fall semester we have found a new head of the department
(though Dr. Amos, I will never forget your puns). Our new boss is entering a scary world where the student works have three plus years experience on her. The basic fear of your boss seeing you
screw something up is basically non-existent still. So, books are still not getting repaired at the
Dat iz because your arr lazy, students worker-types bums. Yous iz
no good for doing zee Library vork.
rate they used to be two years ago. This is big problem in a department full of needy books. Books that call out for attention from someone, anyone! Don’t fear first edition of Collected
Longer Poems of W.H. Auden, behavior analysis is here to save the day!Note: This paper is hypothetical but all the places and contingencies are real. This feasibly could
be implemented in this environment.
Six Steps to Behavior Systems Analysis
Step #1: Analyze the Natural Contingencies
The Special Collections and Rare Books department at Waldo Library has a problem…they have books. Lots of books. Mainly broken, abused, unloved books who just need a helping hand. Many of these books are part of our literary history and if we can’t save them, what will our
children and their children have to look at for examples of our literary history. However, with the amount of books that this department has, repairing that moldy copy of Dante’s Divine Comedy
is too small to reinforce the behavior of fixing it.
Ineffective Natural Contingency
Natural Competing Contingency
Fixing a book requires the help of some not-so-nice-smelling chemicals like leather cleaner and 200 proof ethyl, de-natured alcohol. Starting repairs is liable to make you experience a new
world of aversive smells you didn't even know existed.
Given amount of books to repair
Repair one book Slightly less books to repair
No aversive smell of glue/mold killer
Repair one book Aversive smell of glue/mold killer
Also fixing a book requires the use of many sharp tools. My lovely assistant Gus (and model in all these pictures) cut the tip of this finger off fixing a book. No joke. Libraries can be dangerous.
The dangers of Library work.
Step #2: Specify the Performance Objectives
The main goal is to increase the output of repaired books. To facilitate this we need to complete a goal-directed systems design form. In this, we can see where the personnel (front-line and
managers) come into play with regards to the goal of this system. The four main organizational outcome measures of quality, quantity, timeliness, and cost will be used as standards to
compare the current state and the ideal state after the addition of the performance-management contingency; a contingency that is not already occurring in nature and is designed by a
performance manager to control behavior- here, that’d be me attempting to increase book repair
Input-process-output
Goal Specification Form
Subsystem #___1__
Outp ut Fully repaired books Current Ideal
Standards QualityBooks repaired properly 80% of the time
Books repaired properly 100% of the time
Quantity 1 book a day At least 4 books per day
Timeliness No deadline Before new shipment of books
Cost N/A
less than $100 spent on intervention
ProcessFix broken book
Production: X Distribution_ __ R&D__ _
Front line Current Ideal
Personnel Student Employees Student Employees
Procedures Repairing Books Repairing Books
Equipment Glue, mold killer, paper, scissors, etc. None
Contingencies NoneBonus contingent upon the number of books repaired
(Repaired Book) [output]
Production: fix broken book [process]
(Broken Books) [input]
Management Current Ideal
Personnel Head of the Rare Books and Special Collections Head of Rare Books and Special Collections
Procedure Training workers to repair books Training workers to repair
Equipment Computer, data sheets, paper, etc. Same
Contingencies None
Bonus contingent upon increase in number of books repaired by students
Input Broken Books
Step #3: Design an InterventionThe intervention that has been put into place is relatively basic and easy to manage. I typed up and gave my fellow employees a performance contract (behavioral contract or contingency contract), a written rule statement that described the behavior (correctly repairing books), when that behavior should happen (at work), and the added outcome (monthly bonus points contingent
upon amount of books fixed). At the end of the month when statistics are taken for how many books repaired and by whom, the amount of books repaired per person will earn the person with the most repairs a special bonus for that month. The theoretical contingency, a contingency that
is inferred and direct-acting and explains the effectiveness of the indirect-acting performance management contingency, is the fear of the loss of these “repair points” toward the monthly
bonus.
Three Contingency Model of Performance Management
S d : Before end of shift
Given amount of books to repair
Repair one book Slightly fewer books to repair
Ineffective Natural Contingency
Will lose a point toward bonus at end of
month
Repair one book Will not lose a bonus toward bonus at end of
month
Performance Management Contingency
Fear the loss of a point toward bonus
Repair one book Do not fear the loss of a point toward bonus
Inferred Theoretical Contingency
Step #4: Implement the InterventionThe efficiency and depth of care taken by special collections at a library is a great reflection of
how things in general are running in a library. So, a great deal of information can be gleamed from a glance around a library’s cove of hidden treasures; the pearl of the library if you will. A sloppy rare book room would be grounds for prospective clients to turn down the possibility of having conferences there. Having cool, worldly people want to be associated with your university is very reinforcing, all the way up to the President of the University. This is the Performance-Management Model of Cultural Change; if we want to manage and change the behavior of the members of a culture, you have to manage and change the behavior at all levels of the culture.
Cultural Change Model
Will lose the opportunity for points
toward bonus
Repair a book Will not lose the opportunity for points
toward bonus
Will lose the opportunity for a 5%
raise
Implement and maintain performance management
contingency for the students
Will not lose the opportunity for a 5% raise
Will lose the opportunity for a 10%
raise
Oversee the maintenance of the
performance management by student
advisor
Will not lose the opportunity for a 10%
raise
Will lose the opportunity to host book conservation
conference
Oversee the Head of Rare books enforcement of
performance management contingencies
Will not lose the opportunity to host book conservation conference
Will lose support from Library Faculty, thus
losing votes
Mandate performance management
contingency policy
Will not lose support from Library Faculty and
not lose any votes
Student worker’s Contingency
Student Advisor’s Contingency
Dean of Library’s Contingency
President of WMU Contingency
Head of Collection’s Contingency
Step #5: Evaluate the InterventionThe intervention has been a great success for us at the Rare Books room. The students workers
were actually excited to give it a try-and of course to get that end-of-the-month bonus. The intervention was implemented in month 9.
This graph is the number of books repaired, starting with January 2006, and ending with October
In the summer months, 5-8, there is a definite drop in the number of repair actions taken and books repaired. After the introduction of the performance management in month 9, there is an
increase in the number of repair actions taken and in the overall number of books repaired.
Step #6: Recycle through previous steps until you achieve your objectivesIn month 10 we hired three new employees so we had to recycle the objectives since it generally
takes about one full year before you learn to do everything 100% correctly at this job. The number of books was lowered from 4 a day to 2 books a day. This decrease in the amount
required ensured that sloppy work wasn’t being done just to meet the daily requirements. This recycling was a success.
Books Repaired
22
412
1
19
39
6763
35
8674
0
20
40
60
80
100
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Months
bo
oks
rep
iare
d
baseline intervention
recycle
ConclusionWe now get more books fixed in this department than ever before. With the new employees all
being trained and operating under this performance management schedule, perhaps they can keep it going after I retire my de-molding brush and move onto saving other parts of this world with
behavior analysis.